Accenture Acquires EnergyQuote JHA – ‘A No Brainer’

AccentureannouncedTuesday it completed its acquisition of energy management and procurement services provider EnergyQuote JHA. The deal with the London-based provider, originally announced in late July, will give Accenture a boost to its existing energy procurement offerings.

EnergyQuote JHA has customers in more than 22 European countries – an asset Accenture said will help improve its own influence throughout the continent – and offers specific services such as energy risk management, energy contract management, portfolio management and utility billing validation.

EnergyQuote JHA CEO Jonathan Lydiard-Wilson said the deal would “benefit the clients of both companies.” The acquisition also could bring about a suite of energy procurement and management services all wrapped up in one provider, something clients were increasingly looking for, Accenture BPO czar Mike Salvino added.

Spend Matters Chief Research Officer Pierre Mitchell said this “one-stop shop” idea is a recurring theme in the industry – take IBM for hardware in 1970s, Microsoft for Desktop software in the 1980s, SAP/Oracle for ERP in the 2000s and so on.

Accenture is on the acquisition path for not just traditional business process outsourcing (BPO) targets, but any type of sticky managed service providers that allows it to “penetrate and radiate” in a market, Pierre said, and pointed to Procurian’s (previously ICG Commerce) acquisitions of Neuwing Energy and Utilities Analyses.

Accenture’s acquisition of EnergyQuote JHA allows global business expansion and global category coverage. But like the Procurian acquisitions, “It also allows access to specific regional intelligence and expertise that is needed to navigate complex sourcing processes within fragmented commercial players, regulatory regimes and IT systems to integrate to,” Pierre said.

“The acquisition of EnergyQuote JHA is a no brainer for Accenture as it aims for this one-stop shop. But practitioner firms also want to have the flexibility to unbundle various capabilities from such mega providers, and it doesn’t seem that that requirement is currently not very high on the priority list for Accenture.”